Streets.mn has me on assignment in mostly sunnier San Diego, and besides seeing a lot of cool animals, this trip has me thinking about water (ok, not on assignment, but on vacation). San Diego is classified as semi-arid to arid, receiving less than 12 inches of rain per year. Typical suburban yards look a lot [...]
About Brendon Slotterback
Brendon is a planner and analyst living and working in the Twin Cities. He writes about planning, transportation and the environment. He likes catching trout and riding bikes. You can find his blog at netdensity.net and you can follow him on twitter.
Washington Avenue proposed layouts are posted
Bill, David, and I have all written posts about the upcoming reconstruction of Washington Avenue, primarily to comment on questions we have with the traffic analysis. In advance of the public open house meeting on Tuesday (at the Mill City Museum, you should attend), Hennepin County has posted four potential street layouts (thanks to @mplsbike for [...]
Washington Avenue Traffic Projections
Hennepin County is preparing to reconstruct a portion of Washington Avenue between Hennepin Avenue and 5th Avenue South. There has been much discussion of this project, in part because the reconstructed road may or may not include some sort of bike facilities. Today I got an email about an upcoming public meeting for the project, and I noticed [...]
Models for tackling climate change at the regional level
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the next regional plan (called ThriveMSP 2040) may be one of the most significant pieces of policy that gets made in Minnesota in this decade. Every ten years, the Metropolitan Council looks at how the “systems” of our region are performing (land use, transportation, water, wastewater, [...]
US DOT and HHS announce public health campaign to reduce driving
Standing side by side with many state DOT heads, US DOT Secretary Ray La Hood and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced a new public safety campaign to encourage less driving, lower speeds, and encourage more cycling and walking to meet the nation’s transportation needs. “For too long, the assumption has been [...]
All the ways we subsidize growth
A few weeks ago, I attended the ULI Minnesota program “Kicking the Habit: Unsustainable Economic Growth” that featured streets.mn contributor Chuck Marohn delivering his Strong Towns message. A brief plug – if you’re not a member of ULI, I recommend it. It’s one of the few professional organizations in the land use field that tends [...]
Welcome the streets.mn flickr moderators!
We had a pretty great response to our request for volunteer flickr moderators for the streets.mn photo pool. While there were many worthy candidates, two led the pack with their interesting ideas and skillful eye. Please welcome Allie Klynderud and Joe Scott. They’ll be mining the depths of flickr for great shots and reaching out [...]
Seeking a photo curator
Are you a photographer, videographer, or just a lover of urban images? Streets.mn is seeking a volunteer to help us curate our flickr group. Through flickr, we’d like to collect great images of places, transportation systems, and just interesting things in Minnesota and beyond. Flickr is a great resource for blogging – you can [...]
I Love Trees
One of the reasons I choose to live in an older neighborhood is the trees. Living on or moving down a tree-lined street with canopy coverage from curb to curb is just great. Minneapolis, Saint Paul and many suburbs are blessed with large, old trees. Minneapolis was recently recognized by American Forests as being one [...]
A transit solution in the sky
Since we won’t build rail transit investments where they are really needed, and we can’t even study better bus service because we might build slower streetcars, we have to get creative if we want transit improvements in Minneapolis’ densest and least car-dependent neighborhoods. Enter 32 Magazine and Frog Design, with the urban gondola. 32 Magazine [...]
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The Politics of Dumb Infrastructure
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Rails to Trails…to Rails
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No Parking and De-Signing Streets
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Free transit? A thought experiment.
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Three Half-Assed Freeways That Nobody Will Miss
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Three Half-Assed Freeways That Nobody Will Miss
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The Cases for (and Against) Public and Private Networks
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Podcast #36 – East Side Better Block with Andrew Howard
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Water for our future
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In a West End town, a dead end world
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Bill Lindeke: My crazy vision with half the Hiawatha Avenue ROW ...
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Bill Lindeke: 1) Bike path + freeway for cars = FAIL
2) Live ...
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Bill Lindeke: Just an observation, but vehicle counts are a bit ...
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Matt Steele: I'll use Hiawatha as a Minneapolis example of a p...
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David Levinson: I agree with most of the commenters that Ayd Mill ...
From the network
- Greenways as a road to gentrification (happy hour Q and A): Who: Dr. Melody Hoffmann, bicycle advocacy researcher Where: Honey, 205 E Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55414 When: 5:30 pm on Thursday June 27th (program at 6:00pm) At this happy hour Q&a...
- Walking Distance, Part 1: Today I'm starting a two-part blog post on walking in cities. In the first part of this post, we'll look at the question of how far people are willing to walk in real-world circumstances. In the secon...
- Are Minnesota craft breweries doing enough to market themselves differently?: Communications Conversations Last week, I attended a great event at a craft brewery here in Minneapolis named 612Brew (hosted by Minnesota PRSA). I had a great time catching up with...
- Water for our future: Over at streets.mn I have a new post on the importance of water supply planning for the next regional plan. What does all this have to do with Minnesota? We have tons of water, right? Well, on the...
- What is the Constituency of a Local Land-Use Decision?: cross-posted at Streets.mn In the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis, a local entrepreneur put together a proposal to develop a surface parking lot into a 5-story condo building with retail s...
- The Politics of Dumb Infrastructure [@ Streets.MN]: We have a political situation in the United States where Democrats are too eager to build anything if it creates a job and the Republicans are too willing to call a project a boondoggle without first...
- If Washington Ave doesn’t deserve bus lanes, what does?: According to Hennepin County, around 7,500 bus riders will travel on Washington Ave at peak hour (4:30-5:30 PM) between Hennepin and 35W on an average weekday in the year 2035. For some perspective, t...
- All the Best US Cycle Tracks are Street Level: There has been a lot of discussion in the local bicycling scene about cycle tracks lately. “Cycle track” is a bit of a generic term. It may refer to a one-way or two-way facility. It may r...
- A Timeline of Los Angeles Transit Agencies: This timelime and diagram of Los Angeles transit agencies is impressive. It presents an honest history of transit agencies in Los Angeles and doesn't promote the false idea that there was some type of...
- Heart of Midtown threatened by widening of I-94 [in Detroit]: Opinion: Heart of Midtown threatened by widening of I-94. I read this headline to my students, who started laughing. Detroit, yes Detroit, Michigan is looking to widen a major highway, because presuma...
- Reading the Highland Villager #86: [Basically the problem is that the best source of Saint Paul streets & sidewalks news is the Highland Villager, a very fine and historical newspaper. This wouldn't be a problem, except that its no...
- The Zoning Battle Over Al’s Breakfast – A Form Based Code With a Side of Bacon: “Why would anybody ever eat anything besides breakfast food?” – Leslie Knope “People are idiots, Leslie.” – Ron Swanson When I heard Al’s might get redeveloped, I thought the end of the...
